Contract impacts more than 100,000 phone numbers each day
The Federal Communications Commission has conditionally approved Ericsson’s Telcordia to administer the number portability service that allows customers to keep their phone numbers when switching carriers. The commissioners voted 5-0 in favor of Telcordia, which will replace Neustar, the company that has had the multi-million dollar contract since 1997.
More than 100,000 phone numbers are ported each day, according to the FCC, which says the service is also critical to public safety, law enforcement and consumer protection.
The FCC’s decision authorizes contract negotiations between Telcordia and the North American Portability Management, an industry consortium. The contenders for the contract have already outlined their bids, and the FCC’s order confirms that Telcordia is set to win the contract.
Neustar has seen its stock price plummet more than 50% since January, when it told investors that its revised contract proposal was not likely to be successful with the FCC. The contract accounted for roughly half of Neustar’s annual revenue.
Neustar said this week that the FCC’s vendor selection process has been “substantially defective” and that the proposed vendor change “presents substantial transition risks and cost to the industry and the consumers it serves.” The company had previously claimed that the process was corrupted when a confidential e-mail was posted in the FCC docket.
Meanwhile FCC Commissioner Michael O’Reilly had the opposite complaint about the vendor selection process, writing that “a significant amount of information – more than was probably necessary or justifiable – has been cloaked behind protective orders.” Nonetheless, O’Reilly said he supported the selection of Telcordia based on the available information
Telcordia has provided operational support systems services to telecom companies for years, and was purchased by Ericsson for $1.1 billion in 2011.
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